The major print business areas include large commercial printers and publishers and the packaging and labeling industries. Effective marketing of retail products often requires suitable containers for presenting the product. The packaging not only protects and stores the item but the container has product displays, specifications and safety information. Retail packaging today is significantly different from what it was just a decade ago and the global consumer packaging market continues to grow at a phenomenal pace. To be competitive, manufactures must not only have quality products but they must also develop smart packaging solutions. Folding boxboards are widely used in an array of retail product packaging.
In the current global scenario, industries are targeting both domestic and international markets, so individual businesses must contend with an ever-increasing combination of different boxboard requirements. At the same time, the retail business environment is becoming hyper-competitive, and as a result printers are under pressure to reduce product cost through improving their operational efficiencies and waste minimization. A critical aspect of being competitive in layout design is to reduce development time while using minimal resources to deliver a competitive product that is desired in the market place.
In order to be efficient, the print industry must develop techniques that take into account the following criteria: (1) designing of print layout based on box orders and availability of printing machines, (2) optimizing print layout based on box orders to reduce the cutting and trimming losses, (3) reducing trim loss generation, and (4) assessing paperboard requirements based on box order and availability of printing machines. In a related issue, while there are large numbers of paper suppliers, it is very difficult for printers to select the correct supplier based on cost, quantity, sizes, available inventory and delivery time.